Brighton lead way in tackling sexual assault problems

Posted Thursday, April 09, 2015 by Independent.co.uk

Brighton & Hove Albion running a programme to educate young players on legal and moral issues of sexual consenst

This has been a disappointing season for Brighton & Hove Albion on the pitch. But off it, the Seagulls continue to innovate. The latest example of that is a unique programme to educate the club’s young players on the legal and moral issues of sexual consent.

The “Protect, Inform and Prevent” programme, put together by Maggie Ellis, a psychotherapist and the chief executive of Lifecentre Rape Crisis Service, and Russ Whitfield, a former police chief superintendent, is the first at a football club to involve both male and female players.

The Under-16, 18 and 21 squads of both sexes are instructed on the grey areas around consent, and taken through the law and the sometimes harrowing procedures and processes experienced by accused and accuser. The players role-play situations and take part in confidential question and answer sessions about previous encounters.

Some pundits have claimed this is an area beyond football’s remit, despite the conviction for rape in 2012 of Ched Evans, which hinged on the issue of consent. But Brighton were receptive to the idea after four of their young players, including Anton Rodgers, the son of Liverpool manager Brendan, were acquitted in 2013 of charges of sexually assaulting a 19-year-old woman in a hotel in the city.

"It wasn’t exactly cause and effect,” Brighton’s chief executive, Paul Barber, told The Independent. “But the case did leave an indelible mark because I saw what it did to the young men involved and also their families and the club as a whole. A former policeman called Graham Bartlett, who used to be the Amex match commander, came to me and presented the idea. I told Sue Parris, our head of education, that I thought it was good and that we should do it for our women’s teams as well.

"We’re not parents, or teachers in the conventional sense, but we do have a responsibility for wider education beyond football coaching. We put courses in place, but the one area our young footballers are most vulnerable in is when they are themselves, normal everyday teenagers.”

Ellis said: “Brighton have been very forward-thinking, and we’ve been very impressed with the attitudes and the standards of the players. They have been very positive and we have had excellent feedback from them all. We find that the players are aware of constant media headlines about footballers being arrested for rape and they don’t want it to be them. Our agenda is to prevent rape and sexual assault from happening.”

Reading, two years ago, and Brighton are the only clubs so far to have run the course, the former only with their male youth teams. "While the general public see clubs as having lots of money because they spend lots on players, they actually don't have lots allocated to training," Ellis said. "What we would like is to see the PFA [Professional Footballers' Association] put a budget into this programme to support the clubs to be able to deliver training."

Support came from the Brighton Pavilion Green Party candidate Caroline Lucas, who presented a private member's bill to Parliament last year calling for mandatory sex and relationships education in schools.

"I'm very pleased our local football club is taking the lead on such an important issue and I hope many others take note and follow suit," she said. "We absolutely need to ensure we're getting the right messages across to young people about healthy, positive and consensual relationships."

Ellis agrees. "Our society gives young people education in the biology of sex and the transmission of infection but nobody delivers training in the criminal side," she said. "And it's important that they know where the dividing line falls in terms of consent, and when people have been drinking and no longer have the capacity to consent."

"With the females we focus a lot on preventing vulnerability, for example information about drink-spiking. One of the young women at Brighton said after doing the training: 'I think all women should do this programme and then there'd be much less rape in our society'."

Meanwhile Brighton are setting an example. "It's not for me to call on anyone to make sure this happens in schools, though I'm a parent and I believe it should,” Barber said. “But if it doesn't, I can't hold my hands up and say 'It’s not my problem’, because three years ago it was my problem. If the PFA or FA or Leagues can encourage other clubs to do it, that can only be a good thing."